A crossing, fall, and then a humble climb
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Beauty's bridge extends from where I stand,
beyond belief — escaping from my grasp
to flutter, dance, and spiral in the wind;
cavorting free, ignoring all demand
that issues from my lips — the wish to clasp
the source of that whose sight does ever mend
a broken and dilapidated soul.

A chasm ever cries to be made whole;
and boughs around its rim do worried stare
far-downward where the fast-eroding roots
threaten to harsh-buckle and down-roll
into the pit — and I will meet you there,
among the timid and the tender shoots
who burst from sullen places with dim hope.

And when the third comes — "cast us down the rope!"
we wail in reverb'rations dun and broad:
and though the air our fervent pleading mutes,
that figure, halo'ed, its bright eyes must ope —
taking pity on we two roughshoud:
Beauty — Ugliness who she refutes,
and we both scramble up the shining cord.